


not to me (not if it's you)

by petitepeach



Series: tarot prompts [1]
Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: Communication, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Prompt Fill, They love each other, also as usual, as usual, like a jar of that marshmallow stuff fluff, yann is a good bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-27 02:50:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20753114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petitepeach/pseuds/petitepeach
Summary: for the tarot card prompt:the star: renewal, hope, rest“i feel at peace”possible AUs/settings/ideas: star-gazing, lazy days, cuddling, spirit au





	not to me (not if it's you)

**Author's Note:**

> (i want to give a quick disclaimer that i am, by no means, an expert on mental health. so, if anything i write about eliott/bpd does not sit right with anyone, please don’t hesitate to let me know!)

Lucas wakes up and, for a moment, forgets where he is.

He’s cold, and his neck is at an uncomfortable angle, propped up on something solid, the muscles and tendons pulling when he shifts slightly.

He opens his eyes, slowly, blearily, to face scuffed brown fabric, a mysterious stain that looks like it could be coffee, a hole where white stuffing is beginning to leak out.

Eliott’s sofa.

He rolls onto his back, the scratchy wool blanket wrapped around him sliding off with the movement, pooling to the floor in a heap of mossy green. He strains his ears for any sound in the apartment—a boiling kettle maybe, or a closing cupboard. But, nothing.

Still asleep, then.

Or, not asleep but not. Not himself.

The events of the night before feel like a fever dream when Lucas tries to recall them: the vague text message from Eliott at two in the morning, Lucas’s subsequent panicked sprint to Eliott’s apartment, Eliott’s quiet plea for Lucas to _stay, please stay Lucas. I can’t…I wanted to be alone, I think I need to be alone, but can you stay? Please? It helps, knowing you’re here._

Lucas can remember how small Eliott looked, asking that, the way his entire body had seemed to shrink in on itself. As if he knew what he asked for was hopeless. As if he knew this was going to be the thing that made Lucas walk out.

He can remember how he’d wanted nothing more than to hold him, to press his face into Eliott’s hair and tell him that everything was going to be alright, that there was nothing Eliott could tell him, nothing he could ask him, that would make Lucas leave, because Lucas loves him. He loves Eliott more than the stars love the moon.

All he had said was, _I’ll sleep on the couch, okay? And I’ll be here, for whenever you need me._

Eliott didn’t reply to that, only let out a choked sob and nodded. He had disappeared back inside his room, the door shutting softly behind him. Lucas had laid his fingertips on the wood, resting them there for a moment, imagining that he could feel Eliott through the door: the soft material of his t-shirt, the warmth of his skin, the gentle heaving of his chest with every breath. He pressed his forehead into the door, eyes shut, hoping for something impossible, something like Eliott being able to feel his touch, to feel how much he loved him, how much he wanted to be close to him all the time, all the way through chipping paint and solid wood, across a cold floor to a warm bed, underneath a thick duvet that was surely wrapped around a trembling body by now.

_Eliott. I love you._

Eventually he pulled away, heading to the closet at the end of the hall to find a spare blanket and pillow.

Now, Lucas sits up, cracking his neck from side to side. He never did find a pillow, only that thick wool blanket that smells like a forest floor. It’s the one he and Eliott had taken to an outdoor cinema, on a blisteringly hot night back in the summer, where they drank cheap red wine straight from the bottle and kissed under the twilight sky and barely paid attention to the film, too wrapped up in one another.

It was, as far as nights go, a perfect one. So vastly different from the night Lucas just experienced, the murky, drowned end of a day spent worrying about where Eliott was, when Lucas hadn’t heard from him for days.

Lucas swings his legs off of the sofa, heels hitting an icy wood floor, toes curling into the mossy blanket. He drops his head into his hands. He feels hungover even though he went to sleep sober.

_You should have known_, he tells himself harshly. _You should have known he was having an episode. You’re supposed to take care of him. How can you say you love him if you can’t even take care him?_

Lucas pushes himself up from the sofa, scrubbing at his eyes and willing his mind to leave him alone, even if just for a moment, a moment, so he can figure out what to do for Eliott, what Eliott will need from him right now.

Coffee. He’s going to start with coffee.

He fills an entire carafe, enough for himself and Eliott, if he comes out of his room. If he wants any. While the coffee steeps Lucas leans against the counter, lost in thought, absently chewing on his thumbnail.

_What does Eliott need from you right now?_

He doesn’t know.

He texts Eliott’s parents, but his mother tells Lucas she’s already heard from him, that she knows Eliott is okay, but still thanks Lucas for checking in with them. He opens Eliott’s laptop on the kitchen table and finds an email from one his professors, telling Eliott not to worry about the class he missed, that he can make up for any missed work the following week.

And suddenly Lucas is getting teary-eyed while reading an email on Eliott’s laptop, standing in Eliott’s kitchen in his boxers and a t-shirt. It’s just. Eliott took care of everything, and Lucas is so proud of him, almost dizzyingly so. It’s a small thing, a small way Eliott is taking care of himself, but Lucas knows Eliott, and he knows that, really, it’s a big thing.

He’s so proud of Eliott. He really is. So when his own mind decides to ask, _You’re supposed to take care of him, but he doesn’t even need you for that_, Lucas feels frustration curl in his chest like smoke. He wants to take a match to his thoughts, wants to drown them in the bottom of the sink.

_That is not what this is about. You are not Eliott’s caregiver, you’re his boyfriend. You’re here because he wants you to be here. He said that it helps, remember?_

It’s a comforting placation, and Lucas holds onto it. A flickering flame he shelters from the storm of his own self-doubt.

He pours himself a cup of the coffee that’s been left steeping for too long, now. He stands on Eliott’s tiny balcony and stares blankly out into the greying, muggy skies of Paris and sips at coffee that is as bitter as tar, sweetened only by the thought of Eliott’s voice, by the memory of how his smile tastes.

By mid-morning Eliott still hasn’t left his room.

Lucas drains the rest of the coffee, wraps himself in one of Eliott’s hoodies he finds hanging in the entryway, and logs into his own email from Eliott’s laptop, downloading his readings for class that week.

He doesn’t actually have any pressing work, but he gets ahead, reading through the PDFs at Eliott’s table, his legs curled under himself and a plate of toast at his elbow, typing lazy notes into a Google Doc.

He sees Eliott for only a moment, a ghost of a boy disappearing around the corner to the bathroom. He doesn’t speak to Lucas when he passes by again, returning to his room as silently as he left it. Lucas waits a minute, then another, before he stands, dipping his head outside of the kitchen. The slice of toast he’d left for Eliott is still there, but the cup of tea is gone, and that makes Lucas smile.

It rains for a little while in the afternoon, while Lucas is cleaning Eliott’s living room, folding the mossy blanket back into a neat square, straightening the sofa cushions, tidying the notebooks and pencils scattered across the coffee table. He doesn’t mean to look, but one of the notebooks is open, one page covered entirely in charcoal smudges, blurred streaks broken up by fingerprints and scratched-out words. On the other page, there’s a single line written in clumsy scrawl at the top of the page:

_What does peace feel like?_

Lucas breath is caught in his throat. He finds himself reaching for the page, his fingers aching, as though he’ll be able to feel Eliott through the curve of every etching, as though he can unwrap Eliott’s layers from this alone, from pressing his hands between the pages.

His phone buzzes and he startles, fumbling for it in the deep pockets of Eliott’s hoodie. It’s a text from Yann, asking Lucas if everything is okay after last night. If Eliott is okay. Lucas gently closes the notebook, sighing. Even if he is Eliott’s boyfriend, he shouldn’t look through his private work. Just because he’s in love with Eliott doesn’t mean he has the rights to every part of him.

He doesn’t text Yann back. He calls him.

Yann answers on the second ring. “Lucas? Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” Lucas’s voice is hoarse to his own ears. He clears his throat, rubbing a hand over his eyes. “Yeah, it’s okay. Eliott’s doing better, I think. He’s sleeping right now.”

Yann hums knowingly. “Okay. And what about you?”

“Yeah, I’m just…uh. I’m, you know. I’m here.”

“You sound tired. Did you sleep at all last night?”

“A bit.”

There’s a pause. “Lucas, are you sure you’re okay? Do you want me to come over?” Yann’s voice is coloured dark-blue with concern, and Lucas can see his face so clearly, the point of tension between his eyebrows, the downward tilt to his mouth. He’s worried about Lucas.

“No, no. Thanks, but I'm alright.” Lucas sighs. “I’m sorry. I’ve just been…having some weird thoughts today. I dunno. Maybe it’s because it’s been so quiet here.”

“Thoughts about what?”

Lucas sinks to the edge of the coffee table, stretching his legs out in front of himself. “I dunno.” He repeats. He shrugs even though Yann can’t see it.

“Okay.” There’s a rustle on the other end of the line. “Well, if I know you, you’re beating yourself up about something.”

“I’m not.”

“Uh huh.”

“I just hope I’m helping him, you know?” Lucas blurts out. He stops, but there’s a heavy silence on the other end of the line. Yann waiting him out. “I want to be good for him. As good as he is for me. I don’t want to be…useless.”

“Lucas.” The word is weighted with affection.

“I dunno. Yeah. It’s stupid.”

“It's not stupid, but it's not true. You know why? Because literally everything you do for Eliott is because you love him. Because you want to make him happy. Usefulness has nothing to do with it. That’s why we fall in love with people, not with wrenches.”

Lucas snorts. “What?”

“I said what I said. Lucas, you are good for him. Trust me.” Yann pauses. When he speaks again, his voice is soft. “You know, he tells me about it all the time. Eliott does. About how good you are to him. He said to me me once that he doesn’t know what he did to deserve you.”

Lucas exhales slowly. His eyes travel to the windows, where the sun is tilting down in the sky, dropping into a oil spill of colour. It’s later than he thought it was.

“If you ask me, you two deserve each other. Falling over yourselves to be the most selfless, or the most loving or whatever.” He can practically hear Yann shaking his head. “Romantic idiots.”

Lucas makes an offended noise.

“Come on, you know what I mean. You love each other.”

Lucas nods. “Yeah,” he mumbles.

“Alright, then.”

There’s a beat of silence. Lucas is still staring out the window, at where the sun is falling down, down, and he’s thinking about ordering some food for dinner, and he’s thinking about how lucky he is to be surrounded by people like Yann. Like Eliott. People with hearts like mountains.

“Hey,” he says. “Yann, listen. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. If you want, you can call me later, okay? It’s just Arthur coming over to game tonight, so it’ll be chill. Or even, come over here.”

“Yeah. Yeah, thank you, again.”

Yann laughs gently. “No worries, Lulu. Take care of yourself.” And he hangs up.

Lucas taps his phone against his bottom lip, smiling to himself as he pulls his gaze from the oil-spill sun across the living room to Eliott’s closed door.

_He told me once he doesn’t know what he did to deserve you._

_What does peace feel like?_

Lucas winds up ordering pizza, because he’s cheap, and because he’s starving.

He winds up ordering a large, with Eliott’s favourite toppings on it, because he’s in love.

Lucas props open the door to Eliott’s balcony with a potted plant, moving the chairs aside and dragging out the sofa cushions along with the big wool blanket. He brings the box of pizza outside, along with two glasses of water, and waits, draping the blanket around his shoulders and hitting shuffle to a playlist on his phone. He turns off all of the lights in the kitchen except for one over the stove, then plugs in the string of fairy lights Eliott has wrapped around the iron fence surrounding the balcony.

He knows Eliott might not come out, and that’s fine if he doesn’t want to. But if he does, Lucas wants the world that greets him to be a nice one. One with all of Eliott’s favourite things in it.

Despite the muggy morning and mid-day rain, it’s a clear night. The air is cool, the chill of an early autumn night settling itself deep into the bones of Paris, but the sunset is spectacular, dark orange bleeding into a bright and vivid purple, both colours chased down the horizon by deep indigo, a blanket of stars coming to put the city to sleep. Lucas has never liked how the days get shorter, and shorter, and shorter as the Earth tilts on its axis but right now, there’s something comforting he finds in the falling dark.

“What is this?”

He jumps on the spot, craning his neck around because he knows who it is, it could literally only be one person, and there’s Eliott, standing just outside of the entrance to the balcony. His hair is sticking up in every possible direction, his sweatpants are tucked into a pair of thick wool socks, one sitting a lot higher than the other, his black t-shirt is slouching off of one shoulder and he’s tired, clearly tired, the delicate skin under his eyes coloured purple and blue, hollow under the low light.

He’s frowning slightly, sluggish and slow. 

Lucas can’t stop smiling.

“I got us dinner.” He says simply, gesturing to the open pizza box. “There’s a glass of water for you, too.”

Eliott’s eyes flick down to the food. Like a reflex, his stomach growls, and he winces. “But what’s…” He gestures vaguely at the fairy lights, at Lucas’s makeshift fort of blanket and cushion. “What’s this?”

“Uh.” Lucas smoothes a hand down the blanket. “This is just…for you.”

Eliott raises his eyebrows. “For me?”

“I wanted to make it nice for you.”

“Oh.” Eliott says softly. He chews down on his bottom lip, shifting on his feet where he’s still standing at the entrance, like he’s scared to enter the little universe Lucas has built. “I wasn’t sure if you’d still be here.” He says at length. “I was surprised to find you.”

Lucas feels his heart clench. “Sweetheart,” he murmurs, and slowly, he raises a hand, offering it to Eliott. Eliott hesitates to take it, and Lucas amends, “If you want to be alone, that’s okay. Do you want to take the food and go back to your room?”

Eliott shakes his head. “No. No, I want…” He meets Lucas’s fingers with his own, their hands folding together. Lucas can’t control the happy sigh he lets out at the feel of Eliott’s hand against his own, and it makes Eliott’s head snap up. When he sees Lucas staring up at him, a beaming smile on his face, he gives a small smile back.

Lucas tugs gently and Eliott steps onto the balcony. He stands there for a moment, eyes roaming from the food, to the lights, to the sunset, and he really is so gorgeous, Lucas thinks. He’s ethereal. He puts all the heavenly beings to shame just by existing.

“This is beautiful.” Eliott says softly, then he’s lowering himself to the cushions, folding his long legs underneath himself and curling into Lucas’s side. “Thank you.” 

Lucas grips a corner of the blanket in his fist and wraps his arm around Eliott, creating a cocoon of warm, earthy wool for the both of them. “It’s nothing.” Lucas whispers into Eliott’s hair, and Eliott smells a bit like sleep, like he’s spent too long in bed, and his fair feels a little greasy under Lucas’s cheek but he’s here. He’s warm underneath Lucas’s arm and he’s breathing and he’s here and Lucas has never meant anything more than he means those words. _It’s nothing. I’d do anything for you._

“It’s not nothing.” Eliott disagrees. He pulls back a bit from Lucas, but his eyes stay low. “It’s not. You stayed. All night and all day, you were here.”

“Of course I was.” Lucas says. He gently nudges Eliott’s chin up with his thumb. “Hey. Of course I stayed.”

“I really didn’t think you would. I actually…” Eliott sighs and draws further away, the blanket slipping off one of his shoulders. He reaches for the glass of water Lucas set aside for him. “I expected you to leave.”

Lucas stares at him. “What do you mean? Eliott, if you really wanted to be alone, you could have told me.”

Eliott takes a long drink, waves a hand out flat towards Lucas. “I’ve been…down the last few days.”

Lucas nods. “I know, and I’m sorry I didn’t see any of the usual signs, or—”

“Lucas, please.” Eliott sounds desperate, desperate to speak without being interrupted. Lucas presses his lips together firmly, mouths _sorry_ to him. Eliott inhales sharply, his shoulders rising up towards his ears. “I know you mean well, Lucas, but you can’t talk about _signs_ like my mental illness is an incoming hurricane.”

Lucas’s eyes drop down, chastened.

“I’m not mad.” Eliott presses a finger into Lucas’s bent knee. “I just want to explain. I didn’t have a manic episode, but I was down. I was depressed. And that happens. Or sometimes I’m just manic. There’s no pattern to this, Lucas. It never makes sense, not even to me.” Eliott takes another drink of water. “So, I was down, and I didn’t tell you about it because, I don’t know. I didn’t want to bother you, I guess. Or at least, I didn’t think it was anything too serious. But then I’m working on some homework for an art class, where the professor posed us a question to think on. The question was: _What does peace feel like?_ And it was when I was working on that, that I…” Eliott shrugs. “I couldn’t grasp it. I tried to write some things down but I got frustrated, and I scratched it all out, and in the end it looked like complete chaos, and I lost it because. That’s what I am. That’s what the inside of me looks like. What it feels like, sometimes.” Eliott’s voice cracks, and he masks it with another sip of water.

Lucas feels like his chest is caving in on itself.

“And I realized,” Eliott continues, “that peace feels like you. That’s how I feel, when I’m with you. But that, that scared me.” Eliott stares at Lucas directly now. “You can’t love another person like that, where they’re your entire life. And nobody can be loved like that. Everyone will get hurt, that way.” Eliott shakes his head. “But at that point, I was spiralling, and all I wanted was to see you, to have you make everything quiet, but that was also one of the reasons I was spiralling, because I rely too much on you.”

“Eliott.” Lucas whispers. He tries to say a million things with his name.

Eliott shakes his head again. “I didn’t want to call you, but I did, and then when I saw you it was such a relief, but I was so angry at myself for wanting to see you. For needing you. So I asked you to stay and went to my room and I thought, maybe when I wake up he won’t be here. But you were. And you are still here, which is.” Eliott picks up Lucas’s hand and presses a kiss to the back of it. Then another. “I know it’s not true.” He says quietly. He rests his cheek against their clasped hands. “I’m learning to take care of myself. I’m becoming strong on my own. Actually my,” he huffs a laugh, “my therapist says I’m doing really well, but she also says that it’s good to have someone who can help me when everything is too much. She says it’s not wrong to need others, sometimes.”

“It’s not.” Lucas says, squeezing Eliott’s hand.

“I know.” Eliott smiles at him, eyes wet. “I do. But it can be one thing to know, and another to believe.”

Lucas nods, and gently cards his free hand through Eliott’s hair. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen, at first. Thank you for telling me. Thank you for trusting me.”

Eliott shrugs. “Thank you for being here.”

They say _I love you_ at the exact same time, and it makes them both smile, Lucas laughing when Eliott’s stomach growls again.

They eat pizza and sit together under the wide open sky of the little universe Lucas built, watching the stars blink to life as the night grows long and restless.

“This feels like peace.” Eliott says quietly, tucking himself back under Lucas’s arm. “Being here with you.”

Lucas presses a smile into his hair. “Yeah?”

Eliott nods, kissing where Lucas’s shirt dips low on his collarbone. “And watching the stars, seeing the moon rise. That feels like peace.”

Lucas think for a moment. “Watching the rain fall from inside.”

“Taking a deep breath of fresh air.”

“Going for a walk at midnight.”

“Listening to a really good song. Just closing your eyes and listening.”

“Laughing so hard you cry.”

“Drawing something, letting it carry you away.”

“Eating pizza.”

Eliott laughs, and kisses Lucas’s neck, letting his mouth linger there. “Being held by you. Feeling your hands on me.”

Lucas nods, like he’s agreeing, but he also whispers, “Orgasms,” and Eliott smacks him in the stomach.

“Lucas.” Eliott groans, but he’s laughing, properly laughing, and it’s the first time Lucas has heard that in days.

“Hearing you laugh.” Lucas says. His free hand comes up and smoothes across the corner of Eliott’s bottom lip. “Your smile. That’s it, for me.”

Eliott’s smile softens. His lashes swoop in one slow blink. “Do you…want to stay the night? I know you’ve been here for a while, but if you want to, then. I want you to.”

Lucas is already nodding. “I want to. I’ll sleep on the couch again, if you like.”

“No, no. That’s okay.” Eliott presses himself impossibly closer. “But thank you.”

“No problem.” Lucas runs a soothing hand down Eliott’s back. “Just let me know if you change your mind, sweetheart.”

Eliott’s melting into him, the remaining tension in his body falling away bit by bit, and Lucas can see how exhausted Eliott is, can see how much the last few days have taken out of him, and he’s so proud of him, of this boy who’s more beautiful than the stars and has the heart of a mountain and is stronger than most people will ever know.

“If I’m going to stay,” Lucas says, Eliott shifting against him, “then I want to take a shower.”

“Okay.” Eliott agrees easily.

“Do you want to join me?” Lucas asks, brushing Eliott’s hair back from his forehead. “I’ll wash your hair for you.”

“Oh.” Eliott murmurs. “That sounds nice. Yeah, let’s do that.”

Lucas stands first, gathering the empty cups and pizza box and bringing everything inside, Eliott coming in after, the blanket wrapped around his shoulders, trailing behind him like a ceremonial robe.

Lucas unplugs the lights, and it’s dark inside Eliott’s apartment, but neither of them bother turning on any more lights. It’s easy enough for them to get around, lit up by the bright stars, guiding each other with tightly held hands.

It’s dark, and they’re both moving slowly, a bit clumsy, but we’re not worried.

We know they’ll make it there.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! 🧡
> 
> come say hi on tumblr [@lepetitepeach](https://lepetitepeach.tumblr.com)


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